


Memories

by writerjesus



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 11:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14852055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerjesus/pseuds/writerjesus
Summary: If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph.





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with this idea last night and it hasn't let me go. Fluff and fluff and more fluff ahead. Not beta-read.

When Joey was a kid, he found a camera in his parent’s closet. Before they found out he took it, he finished the roll of film before bed time. He took pictures of Serenity and of his bedroom. His dinner, the sunset, and a few pictures where the camera went off, showing off the beige wall or a blurry view of Joey’s face. His parents scolded him for taking things without asking and lecturing him that the film was expensive and getting harder to replace. Still, when the pictures were developed, Joey showed them off proudly and kept them in a shoebox under his bed.

 

As the years have gone by, the habit hasn’t changed much. On his phone, he had hundreds of photos from over the years. Once a year, he’d make a big day of going to get them printed and look back on all the fun times he had. He had quite a collection by now, at twenty-five. That time he found that cafe downtown that allowed dogs on Sundays. A nice sunset a few years back, according to his note on the back. Some nice looking food he had. Some not so nice looking food he had with his friends. Not everything had to be groundbreaking or Life Changing to be worth taking a picture of.

 

That wasn’t to say that there weren’t some damn important photos though. The view from his desk in high school, on his last day. Graduation. Seeing Teá off at the airport when she left for New York. That time he and Yugi took a trip to Egypt. Moving out of his place with his dad (finally). His first apartment. Photos of his rankings every time he entered a Duel Monsters tournament, whether he won or not. Some people probably thought him vain or dumb to take so many photos but they were important to him.

 

Over the last few years, there was a surprising guest in his photos. Seto Kaiba had somehow made a place in Joey’s life that wasn’t abrasive. With both of them being in the Duel Monsters circle, it wasn’t too much of a surprise that they’d bump into each other outside of high school and evil spirits or the like trying to take over the world. They had work-related talks, which then turned into not-so-work-related talks. They didn’t talk about what was going on for a while. Joey figured that Seto was just being friendly, growing up from the pretentious kid he used to be. It was only until Seto tried to kiss him after one of their dinners that Joey realized how big of an idiot he was.

 

So their regular “friend dinners” were dates and they continued to have them as often as Seto’s busy schedule allowed. Joey’s collection then involved a lot more Seto-related things: restaurants they went to, duels they had, a picture of Joey’s key ring with a shiny new key to the Kaiba mansion. He took pictures whenever he felt it was important, even if the photos came out blurred or in poor quality. Actually, some of the indiscernible ones were his favorites. To anyone else, they’d seem poorly developed or accidents. However, to Joey, that’s what made them even better. Quite a few of said photos were Joey’s attempts to take pictures with Seto. For whatever reason, his boyfriend didn’t like to take photos outside of the press. That never stopped Joey from trying.

 

* * *

 

 

Seto was working late and Joey was feeling bored… and sentimental. Instead of moping that his boyfriend wasn’t home yet, Joey grabbed his box of photos from the closet. He flopped down on the bed and dumped the box’s contents across the linen sheets. Joey had a few favorites that he liked to flip through. They were stacked together, held together by a paperclip.

 

One was of the view of Domino City from the top of the KaibaCorp building at sunset when Seto had cancelled his last meeting so they could have dinner on the roof.

 

Another was of a blurred black blob. It didn’t look like much but Joey remembered that night like it was yesterday. For their one year anniversary, they had driven out of Domino City. They left in the afternoon and drove until it was dark, where the light pollution wouldn’t affect their view of the night sky. It didn’t show well on film but Joey remembered the gentle light, the summer air on his skin, and the soft look in Seto’s eyes.

 

There was the picture of a Christmas tree in the main living room of the Kaiba mansion. Their first Christmas together. Mokuba had confiscated Seto’s phone for a few hours so they could all be in the moment together. The three of them had all gathered to decorate the tree and sing carols and make cookies. It was incredibly cliched and fun as hell. Even now, Joey can remember the smell of pine and the burning logs in the fireplace.

 

There was a photo of Joey dressed in a full tuxedo, a red tie around his neck. It had been his first public appearance at a KaibaCorp fundraiser since they had come out as a couple. Of course, the media had a field day with it. Rumors flew that Joey was just a gold digger, that Seto was paying Joey to say they were together, that they were just doing it for shock value and had their own mistresses on the side. It had really bothered him but Seto was undisturbed. “People will always be idiots.” He told Joey as he straightened the blond’s tie for him. “Just ignore them and focus on what matters.”

 

Joey looked up from the photos when he heard the bedroom door open. He smiled when he saw his boyfriend walk into the room, already undoing his tie. He was still in his button down shirt and dress pants, so he must’ve just come from his office. “Hey.” He greeted, starting to collect the photos and placing them back in their proper place.

 

Seto approached the bed and looked at what the blond was doing. “Having fun?”

 

Joey smiled more and nodded. “Yeah. Just looking back on all this stuff. Makes you think how much has changed, you know?”

 

Seto nodded, sitting on the edge of the bed. As Joey was collecting the photos, he grabbed one and flipped it over to read the back. “‘Seto’s office’,” he read, following the date. “‘Miss him.’ That’s when I had to fly to California for a couple weeks.” A statement, not a question.  
  
Joey smiled sheepishly and nodded. “I stopped by your office sometimes. It was weird seeing it without you hunched over at your desk.”

 

Seto handed Joey the photo back, briefly perusing the collection. Once all the photos were safely in their box, he kissed Joey’s cheek. “Wait here.” He left the room, returning a few minutes later with a box. “I was going to save this but it seems appropriate to give to you now.” He handed the box over to Joey and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “And don’t shake it.”

 

Joey huffed a little although he was just about to do so. “I wasn’t gonna.” He moved to sit on the edge of the bed beside Seto. He undid the ribbon on the box. “This is a surprise though. Not a holiday or my birthday.” He eyed Seto carefully. “It’s not one of those gag gifts, is it?”

 

Seto rolled his eyes. “Do you want it or not?”

 

Joey tore at the paper. “I do, I do, hold on. You always wrap these things way too well.” After clawing the tape off, he opened the box. Inside was a vintage looking Polaroid camera, a few rolls of film, and a scrapbook. He blinked and turned the camera over in his hands. “Woah, this is cool! It’s like the one my mom had.”

 

Seto smiled as he watched. “I know. I asked her what kind of camera she had.”

 

Joey stopped. “Wait. You talked with my mom? When? Why?” While he and his mom had a better relationship nowadays, their relationship was still a little shaky.

 

Seto shook his head. “I’ll tell you later. Now keep looking.”

 

Joey eyed Seto warily before looking back to the scrapbook. It was a plain brown leather, no inscriptions or designs on it. He opened it and was met with a photo of a young Seto and Mokuba from their orphanage days. He flipped through the book… Newspaper clippings with Seto’s name in the headlines, announcing his takeover of KaibaCorp. Another newspaper about the opening of Kaibaland. More clippings from the finance section of the paper, showing how well KaibaCorp was doing. The next page was a copy of Mokuba’s acceptance letter into high school, and then University. There was a copy of Mokuba’s picture as valedictorian.

 

Joey was about to joke that Seto had given him Mokuba’s baby book by accident before he saw the next page. It was a collection of Joey’s tournament standings. Most of them were wins, but he had kept the ones he had lost too.

 

There were photos that Joey recognized from his social media. Photos of him and Yugi in Egypt. Him meeting up with Teá in New York, him and Tristan fixing up one of his old motorcycles. While the other pages were unmarked, these ones had captions. _Dweeb Squad_ or _Nerd Fest_. But as the pages went on, the teasing nicknames faded away. Then it was just their names, the dates, how old they were at the time.

 

The next few pages were receipts. Joey recognized a few of them… Restaurants they had gone to when they were hanging out, when Seto had picked up the tab. Their early dates. The papers continued: movie tickets, museum tickets, birthday cards and anniversary cards. There was even a small collection of plastic bags that held pine needles, now brown and brittle from age. They were marked as Christmas with the corresponding year. Everything was carefully dated and marked.

 

The last few photos were a surprise. They were photos of him, of Joey, when he wasn’t looking. A couple of them were poor quality which gave Joey the suspicion they were from security cameras or the like. There weren’t many of them but in every one, Joey was smiling. Seto must’ve taken them when he wasn’t paying attention... He read the captions.

 

_Dinner on the roof._

_First time Out._

_Anniversary dinner._

 

The ones that didn’t seem to have any significance all had the same caption: _I love him._

 

Joey looked up to Seto, surprised when he saw his boyfriend with his phone out. But Seto wasn’t looking down at his phone, reading or casually browsing the web. He was taking pictures of him. He flushed and tried to swat the phone from Seto’s hands. “What’re you doing?”

 

Seto smiled. “Taking pictures of you going through that.” He set his phone down to appease him. “Did you like it?” He asked.

 

Joey pushed his bashfulness away and nodded. “I did, yeah... I didn’t know you took pictures of me. Or kept any of that stuff.”

 

Seto shrugged one shoulder, appearing nonchalant. “Well. It’s like you say: it’s important.” He paused, hesitating. It takes Joey a moment to realize that Seto’s nervous. Before Joey could ask, Seto continued. “I figured it was important for me to show you this. At first, I only cared about Mokuba and my job. And then, I didn’t. I cared about you. And your-” he stopped, corrected himself, “our friends. And you’re right. A lot has changed. So I wanted to show you that.”

 

Joey set the book aside so he could cup Seto’s face and kiss him softly. It was brief and sweet and they both pulled away smiling. “That’s pretty damn sentimental, especially from you.”

 

Seto chuckled a little and grabbed his phone. “I have one more photo for you. I haven’t gotten it printed yet since I didn’t plan on showing you this yet.” Joey’s phone lit up to alert him of a new message.

 

Joey grabbed his phone and unlocked it, opening up the message. He stopped when he saw the image on his screen. It was of Seto, a rare selfie in and of itself, but he was holding something. It was angled towards the camera clear as day: a simple silver band, a single blue gem in the center. The photo was edited so it looked like it was a polaroid. In Seto’s script, the picture was captioned: _Will you marry me?_

 

Joey looked up at Seto and grabbed his shirt to pull him into a kiss. “Yes.” He laughed once they pulled apart. “Absolutely yes, you fucking dork.”

 

Seto laughed along, relief and joy written all over his face. “I don’t have the ring right now. It’s getting sized right now. The one in the photo was a placeholder. I really hadn’t planned on doing this tonight.”

 

Joey shook his head. “It’s fine, I’ll see it eventually anyway. Do you have yours?”

 

Seto nodded and went into the closet, going into one of his jacket pockets and procured a small velvet box. He took his seat beside Joey and opened it up, showing off a similarly styled ring. However, Seto’s own ring was a black band with a red gem.

 

Joey couldn’t help but laugh, overjoyed. “You’re a fucking nerd and I love you.” He took the ring and slid it onto Seto’s finger.

 

“I should be doing this to you first, considering I proposed.” Seto reminded but he didn’t pull his hand away.

 

Joey lifted Seto’s hand and kissed his knuckle, right above the ring. “I love you.”

 

Seto kissed Joey’s forehead. “I love you too.”

 

“Looks like we’ll have a lot more photos to look forward to, huh?”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes they have themed rings. They probably have a themed wedding too, let's be honest.


End file.
